


The Fallen Again

by midnightflame



Series: Homecoming [5]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, The struggle for our better selves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2017-01-13
Packaged: 2018-09-17 07:22:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9311387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightflame/pseuds/midnightflame
Summary: We all have places we never want to see again. Those ones that bring us right back down to all we wish we wouldn't have to be.





	

**Author's Note:**

> And onward we go! Companion piece for Keith to this part should hopefully be up soon-ish. And for those of you who have been following along, I hope some things are starting to come together. Enjoy!

There is something absolutely nauseating about the roar of a crowd, the way voices erupt with anticipation. Goading, calling, encouraging. It always starts with silence, expectant and heavy, collective breaths held, and then like one giant beast rising from the seas, sound breaks in a crushing surge, sweeping over him.

Reminding him of everything that should have been left buried six-feet deep in the past. 

Only, Shiro knows there is no forgetting. Not this. Not ever. The reminders sit in the scar across his nose, in the arm that is his but has never quite fully been a part of him. They sit in the darkest parts of his mind, springing to life whenever dreams would dare to take his sleep, twisting them until his breath is ragged and his eyes open wide and disbelieving. Until all thoughts of rest are as distant as Earth and everything else he had once called home. 

_Champion_.

A single word, passed about like a cup containing their last drink, with all the awe and trepidation that comes with staring down the faintest spark of hope at the end. He can hear it murmured behind him, falling from lips inhuman but with no less fear, no less heart than any person he has ever known. All of them alive, even if not quite so well. All of them having no rightful reason to be here.

Just a shit hand dealt. 

His gaze passes over the two sentries just outside the gate. They’ve had their attention on him for some time now. Cautious or curious, he’s not quite sure. Part of him wants to wrap his hands around the slick metal of the bars, to pull himself as close as he can get as if by ghosting along the periphery of death he can somehow force its will to his own. 

_Not today_. . .

But memory holds his feet firm, heart shivering within his chest. Fear, Shiro has come to find, can be as heavy as a moon, as suffocating as space and just as deep and endless. It can smother all rational thought, pulling madness from the very edges of the galaxy. It is the quiet killing voice he wages silent war against, again and again.

Beyond the bars, everything is far too familiar. Tall white pillars, their bases wide and casting shadows in his direction, stand erect at set intervals throughout the arena, and all throughout there remains that pale purple glow of Galran lights, turning the white of everything this off-grey hue. Just like the lips of the dead. 

Shiro shuts his eyes, fingers of his prosthetic arm furling inward. 

_. . .you’re here, after all. . ._

He exhales, soft and controlled, and takes one step forward. Behind him, the other prisoners are crowded at the very back of the holding cell, their eyes fixed on him as always. He reaches out and curls his left hand around one of the bars, which earns him a sudden head turn from both of the guards. They don’t move, simply stare, and never has Shiro felt so. . .caged. 

Or maybe it’s cagey at this point. It gets rather hard to start dissecting down the intricacies of his emotions once the hush settles over the crowd. Waiting, every last one of them. And at the drop of a single word, it will all ignite. 

“They were going to give the first contestant a sword to start, but seeing as you have so graciously volunteered once again. . .”

Shiro’s eyes narrow as the figure rolls off the wall, where he had been nestled in the shadow of the guard stationed to the left. He’s as large as ever, all feline-sharp in his futures right down to the curve of his mouth. 

“. . .and you do have that arm of yours, even if it is quite the outdated model at this point. It is not like we would be sending you out unarmed. You’ll find your other weapon out there in the field. Somewhere, at least.”

“Sendak.”

The name is nothing more than a feral growl, something rising hot and foreboding from Shiro’s core. 

“Welcome back, Shiro.”

At the drop of a few words, a numbness radiates out - freezing fear, icing anger. He stands there, the void of a man, everything that survival would have him be. 

_. . .we’re going to be okay. . ._


End file.
